


take me out (let me down)

by frankie_alex_quin



Series: plot bunnies [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hatake Kakashi is Not Okay, Hospitalization, Injury, Injury Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29856873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankie_alex_quin/pseuds/frankie_alex_quin
Summary: "Take care of yourself, please."He knows that, when she says that, she isn't really seeing him.(A dead friend, a dead lover and a dead brother will do that to you, sometimes.)Or, in which Kakashi winds up in the hospital yet again, and Tsunade is there when he wakes.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Tsunade
Series: plot bunnies [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2109210
Kudos: 17





	take me out (let me down)

“You haven’t changed at all, have you?”

It hits him all at once. A slight pounding in the back of his head, the phantom pain of being stabbed in the leg, a scratchiness in his throat as he breathes through his– thankfully, graciously covered– mouth. (His nose hurts when he attempts to breathe, probably due to that punch he had received.) There’s a weariness in his bones keeping him from moving and a tiredness that only comes from restless sleep. That lack-of-chakra-induced lethargy he’s become all too familiar with.

He can’t force his eyes to open, not yet, but Tsunade is a medic, the best of her class, and is more than knowledgeable enough to know how to tell the difference between chakra flow while awake and asleep.

There’s the tiniest tingling sensation, right around where he’d gotten stabbed. He can tell that she’s not actually healing it, though. Ah, right. Poison, or something like that. The tingling stops and Tsunade lets out a quiet sigh. Her hand ghosts over his face, though she doesn’t actually make skin contact.

She sighs again, this one louder and more resigned.

“Next time, I’m going to make sure Sakura’s on call.”

(Next time, she says, because she knows saying things like “don’t do this again” are meaningless. Hah.)

He’d really rather not see Sakura, and Tsunade, the manipulative woman she is, knows that. Her apprentice (along with the rest of the disbanded Team Seven) serves as a reminder to Kakashi. About how much he’d _failed,_ as a mentor, as a student, and as a friend.

Tsunade, as if she senses his thought, sighs a third time, weary and long-suffering, and, despite everything sounding as though his head’s underwater, he can hear when she turns to leave. He also hears the words Tsunade says as she leaves, though they’re surely not meant for him.

“Take care of yourself, please.”

He knows that when she says that, she isn’t really seeing him. To Tsunade, Kakashi has never been more than ‘brat’ or ‘Hatake.’ A dead friend, on the other hand. (A dead lover and a dead brother, too.) His uncanny resemblance to his father has always played out in the worst of ways.

The door clicks shut, and Kakashi waits for the footsteps outside to fade before he gets out of bed, throwing on the Konoha-issue flak jacket, still dirty, over his bloodied jonin blues and leaping out of the window the hospital staff hadn’t bothered to attempt to seal shut, all too familiar with his habits of escaping.

(He’s the student of the Fourth Hokage. Imagine if he wasn’t at least competent with fuinjutsu.)

He’s still got a few hours of daylight left, a load of laundry to do, and a certain Cat to bother.

**Author's Note:**

> Another random scenario drop, I guess. Was originally going to be a longer one-shot set during the time skip, but whatever. (Maybe I'll get around to that at some point.)
> 
> [tumblr](https://frankiealexquin.tumblr.com/)


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